


Whispers

by ladykiki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Mark of Cain, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9835178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykiki/pseuds/ladykiki
Summary: Your brother’s weak, Sam.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt poisoning. It just would have been mildly helpful if my muse had come up with it before the deadline. I'm gonna claim and post it anyway.

_Poisoning: tr.v. To have a harmful influence on; corrupt._

 

_Your brother’s weak, Sam._

He whipped his head around, pivoted on the ball of his foot. The whisper had seemed to come from behind him, so close he could swear he’d felt breath caress his ear. The tone had been low and silky, the voice familiar and impossible. 

There was no one behind him, no one else in the room at all, except Dean on the other side, stalking along the wall looking for clues, back to Sam and, for all intents and purposes, oblivious to Sam’s presence. 

But that didn’t stop the words from ringing in his ears. 

From dredging up memories of late-night rendezvous, of the taste of warm copper on his tongue, of a tiny car and a nurse in the trunk, of the world falling out from under his feet. He stared at Dean, bathed in a cold sweat as his heart pounded, feet frozen to the floor, and tried to take comfort from his brother’s strong stride, the coiled strength in his back, shoulders, arms, the competent and secure grip he had on the Blade. 

Dean wasn’t weak. Anyone with eyes could see that. 

It just--it wasn’t _only_ his brother. It was the First Blade, and the Mark, and Sam wasn’t afraid to admit that scared him, if only in the privacy of his own mind. He could see the way both worked on Dean, carving away his compassion under a bloodlust that made the days after Dad’s death look like a kiddy carnival. 

As angry as Sam was, had been, had a right to be, as much as he wanted to take the Mark and Blade and throw them in Dean’s face as _this is what I’m talking about, Dean!_ , he wanted his brother back more. He wanted Abaddon dead and the Mark gone and this nightmare over. He wanted his brother back. 

“Sam?”

He blinked back into focus to find Dean standing, tense and suspicious a few feet away. _Why are you looking at me like that?_ He straightened under that look, shook out his shoulders, and looked away. Tried to get air into his lungs and the memories out of his head. 

It didn’t work. “There’s nothing here, Dean.” Nothing but ghosts. And why this place, as bare and dirty as any other place-- _bare concrete, open floor, exposed beams, a demon tied to a chair and Ruby excited and feral as Sam pulled the demon out_ \--stirred them up, he had no idea. It looked nothing like anywhere they’d ever been. Looked exactly like every other place they’d ever skulked around. 

Silence. Stillness. Awareness slithered up Sam’s spine, cold and unwelcome, threading tension between Sam’s shoulders. Then Dean sauntered closer, his step heavy, the cadence meshing unsettlingly with the Ruby prowling behind his back, invisible and insubstantial except for the trickling unease growing in the back of his mind. 

_What do you suppose the Mark whispers to him in the dark watches of the night, hm?_

“What’s your problem, Sam?”

Dean had asked that question in a variety of tones over the years: in frustration, in concern, in anger. Rarely, though, had it ever been drenched in so much violence, been growled with so much threat. 

_What do you suppose it wants him to do?_

Sam found himself giving ground before he’d realized he’d moved, hands up in wordless innocence. “Just. Do you really think we should be listening to Crowley?”

_Snake_ , Sam thought, stomach curdled. _Dean has the eyes of a snake_. They looked opaque in the dim light, green and flat, human emotion leached from them. Sam had the insane urge to laugh, his brain twisting off as Dean didn’t move. He didn’t move and didn’t move and didn’t move, and didn’t-- 

Suddenly, something in Dean loosened, eased, something Sam couldn’t put his finger on, but he could almost see his brother stepping back from the bloodlust, from the Mark, from the violence that seemed to hum under his skin, even as his body still didn’t move, didn’t change. But there was something muted in his tone when Dean said, “Crowley has just as much reason to want Abaddon dead as we do.”

“Does he?” Sam half-expected to be hit for the challenge: knew his brother wouldn’t, couldn’t shake the idea there was something else there.

Dean turned abruptly back to searching the room, taking the threat with him. “Long as he helps us find and kill Abaddon, does it matter?”

_The end justifies the means_. Sam stared at the Blade, the ugly jaw bone with thick, jagged teeth protruding from its length. Cain had wielded it before Dean. Cain had borne the Mark. Cain had killed his brother. 

He didn’t answer, and Dean didn’t seem to need him to, just kept searching the building with Sam trailing after him like a ghost. _Dean wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter_ , he told the voice. _It doesn’t matter what the Mark wants. Dean’s won’t let it win. He’s stronger than that._

He didn’t let it feel like a lie, didn’t let his doubts and fears gain ground. Stubbornly, he held them down and did his part and returned to the Bunker with his brother. Stood silent watch while Dean locked the Blade away. 

It didn’t feel like enough. 

When Sam went to bed, in the bedroom that was his alone, he slipped the Desert Eagle under his pillow. And didn’t ask himself why.


End file.
